The 80s were a good time and a bad time for horror films. The monumental success in the late 70s of Halloween inspired innumerable low budget film makers and studios that a cheap slasher was the sure path to box office riches producing a crop of under-funded knockoffs that possessed none of the style of the films they were following. 1980 brought the rip-off production Prom Nightwhich had the benefit of starring Jamie Lee Curtis who had starred Halloween but other than that had precious little to offer.

Six years later a wholly different production under the title The Haunting of Hamilton High retooled and retitled itself in Hello Mary Lou; Prom Night 2 a story without any connection to the first Prom Night save that take place in the same high school. Both films are Canadian productions that attempt to present their locals as standard Americana but I could swear that in Prom Night 2 when money is flashed it has a clearly Canadian appearance.

The plot of Prom Night 2 is fairly straight forward, Mary Lou Maloney, an enthusiastic sinner of a high school girl, is killed in an accident on Prom night 1957 before she can be crown as prom queen and 30 years later her vengeful and still sinful spirit descends on the high school thirsting for sex, violence, and her crown.

This is film is a mess.

It rips off so many themes and shots and concepts from other movies that there is scarcely anything in it which it can claim as its own. Trying to merge ideas from The Exorcist, Carrie, and Nightmare on Elm Street proved to be a fool’s errand and aside from Lisa Schrage as Mary Lou and perhaps Michael Ironside there is little to praise in the acting presented to us. The lines are delivered without conviction or credibility while being shot in a flat over-lit video style. There is nothing to recommend this film and its gratuitous use of female nudity reveals not only the actresses but the production desperate attempt to drawn in an audience as low class as the production itself.

Hello Mary Lou; Prom Night 2 is currently streaming on Shudder.